In order to further accelerate the development and refinement of our existing package collection, we have brought
NetBSD pkgsrc
and other tools to GNU-Darwin. The NetBSD team has already made their system compatible with a wide variety of architectures, including GNU/Linux, SunOS, and Darwin. We have enhanced the system for interoperability with our existing ports and package tools, so that the two systems can co-exist. As a result, improvements which derive from NetBSD can be rapidly deployed to our users using their existing package system.

Together these advancements demonstrate our ability to deploy on a wide range of platforms, and it forms the basis for a software distribution system that is flexible, transparent, and largely platform independent, so that more people can be conveniently introduced to the benefits of software freedom.

Dynamic library support

If you are a project maintainer, who would like to see your project build dynamically with the ports system,
Check these notes.

Python/Tkinter/Megawidgits/Mesa3D updates

For your convenience, we have provided packages for updating these key development libraries.

The new pkg_install version and ancillary sources are the
first addition
to our new BSD-style src tree. There is also a source
tarball
on the file server.

We have added a
new Fortran distro
to the ports tree. Based on the excellent Fortran tools that are freely available in the ports system,
GNU-Darwin Fortran
is the best f2c-based system that is available for Darwin-based operating systems at this time. We used it to build
Raster3D, which has also been
added to the ports tree. Raster3D should build automatically in the worksrc directory. Many thanks to the excellent Darwin compiler team at core OS, that makes this kind of innovation possible. You guys are on
our
radar! Here are the packages, for the impatient ;-}.

It is perhaps a little known fact that a large percentage of our users are also regular users of various other Unix operating systems. In many cases, such users do not have administrative access to the machines that they are using, so we are now offering a special ports tarball for Tru64 UNIX users to address their need. This version of the
GNU-Darwin porting engine
does not require root access. Using this software, users will be able to run the porting engine in their home directories, so that they can use the same great free software that GNU-Darwin offers to Mac OSX users. This
special edition of the porting engine
is not fully automated yet, but you can untar it in your home directory and try it. The essential tools are also
in CVS.
Directions
for the
GNU/Linux version
will be helpful in setting it up, as will these
tips.

Ports tarball update

There is a new
TDC-style
ports tarball
available now. If you are new to the porting engine, then you can read the following documentation.

Encryption suite,
GNUPG, is now
in CVS. GNUPG is the GPL version of the famous personal encryption software
PGP. Be sure to check out
MacGPG. Of course, packages and
installation instructions
are also available.

Tip:
Use
PGPGPG
to sign your email messages in
Postilion. Follow the
key creation directions
in the
GNUPG Howto, then make a link, "ln -s /usr/local/bin/pgpgpg /usr/local/bin/pgp", and set the PGP options in the Postilion preferences.

Developer Opportunity:
MacSlash has thread about PGP on OSX, but it is looking more like a wishlist.
Check it out.

LAM/MPI update

Use the
-npty
flag with
lamexec
and
mpirun
to avoid a crash on the remote nodes. Thanks to Ricardo Fonseca of
GoLP
for this great tip!

The
TDC ports tree
is in
GNU-Darwin CVS. Thank you,
SourceForge! Here is a screenshot to celebrate the future of the platform. Netscape and ESD are hosted here, but everything else is from GNU-Darwin and the
ports. The backdrop is from
Astronomy Picture of the Day. Xmms now loads its modules, but it still does not recognize them.

Tkinter!

Eureka, at last! Tkinter adds Python bindings to the Tk widget set, and it should be a boon to graphics and imaging. Get the package
here. Tkinter required a modification to
/usr/ports/Mk/bsd.python.mk. which should facilitate the building of many other python-related ports. Now, I'm going to build
PyMOL!

A work in process. Some important functions appear to be working now, such as localtime_r() and drand48(). It includes yp, locale, rpc, regex, db, compat, gmon, quad, sys, string, nls, stdlib, stdtime, net, and gen.
Warning, this library is incomplete, and I'm sure that most of the already existing library functions are already superior for Darwin, but this library will be indispensible for all of those missing functions. GlibC anyone?